1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to portable media devices. More specifically, embodiments of the present invention relate to methods and systems for interfacing portable media devices with media content providers.
2. The Relevant Technology
One of the advantages afforded by technological improvements is the ability to distribute to digital media. High quality digital media can be delivered over various types of networks in relatively short time frames. As a result, many different types of devices have been developed to enjoy the growing availability of digital media, including MP3 players, portable CD players, portable DVD players, notebook computers, cellular telephones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), are examples of such devices. Digital media can also be enjoyed on other non-portable devices as well such as on desk top computers.
Digital media can also be distributed to portable media devices via wireless communication, such as satellite radio, WiFi, cellular networks, and the like. A variety of media content providers are available for distributing music, video, Internet data, sports, news, weather, and the like, to portable media devices. Oftentimes, the data formats employed by the media content providers conflict with the data formats supported by the portable media devices. Therefore, certain portable media devices are unable to directly communicate with media content providers employing nonconforming data formats. For example, certain portable media devices may be able to communicate with a certain media content provider but not another, because of differences in operating parameters and other characteristics among the different media content providers, platforms, or other physical networks. Such differences may include incompatibilities arising from underlying technologies, communication frequencies, communication platforms, the underlying hardware and software that handle communication over a network, communication protocols which define the manner in which data are exchanged, or the physical or operational restrictions imposed by the media content providers to distinguish their services.
Consequently, users of portable media devices are often forced to partner with a limited number of media content providers which have compatible data formats. However, many users would prefer to have the ability to receive media content from a wider variety of media content providers.
Another problem that is often encountered is that the data provided by media content providers often include superfluous information that is not needed by the portable media device. For example, the data communicated by many media content providers are formatted for display on a standard sized computer monitor of a personal computer. However, most portable media devices have limited processing power, limited bandwidth, and small screen sizes, and are therefore unable to take full advantage of all the data provided by the media content providers. The superfluous information included in the data streams from most media content providers results in wasted bandwidth and wasted processor resources for the portable media devices receiving the data.